Break
by I Am Not Amused
Summary: Everyone breaks. Six one-shots explore the breaking points of the Marauders, Lily, and Snape. Stream of consciousness drabbles.
1. Snape 1968

You break first.

Of the six of you who have had your lives so inexplicably and inextricably entangled, you break first.

You also break the least.

The rest of them, they would break periodically and you would curl your lip and sneer at them (except for her) and deny that you _ever_ broke.

You break first, though.

Maybe that's why you call her mudblood when you are fifteen and humiliated. Because you don't want to feel broken again. But when that single word is the final straw in your already tenuous friendship, you break again, for the second time, pleading and begging and groveling and you are on your knees and she is looking at you like _he_ does, with such bloody disdain that you know they're going to be together long before either of them do.

But that's the second time you break.

The first time you break is when you are only seven years old and you haven't met her yet.

Maybe if you had, it would be different. Maybe if you had you would have just thought about her green eyes and everything would have been okay in your pathetically small world. The divide between the Muggle and Wizarding worlds wouldn't have seemed so unbridgeable with her eyes.

Maybe your father is why you become a Death Eater in the first place.

The first time you performed accidental magic he was furious. He didn't hit you. He never hit you because he was too afraid. But he yelled. He yelled cruel and hurtful things about the grease on your nose and the state of your hair and you hated every word but never did anything because your mother would plead with you not to because she loved him and even though they fought and he said mean things he loved them too and you know that don't you?

No, you wished you could tell your mother.

You didn't know that.

Every word that was flung with spittle from your brutish father's lips and then James Potter was him with a wand and he is dragging you out of a pit and his friend is a werewolf and you would be smirking victoriously if you weren't so close to becoming one yourself and then Dumbledore defends them and everyone is in awe of the Quidditch star who would stoop to saving the lowly slimeball Slytherin when he was just protecting his own skin.

The very first time you break you're seven years old and you haven't met her yet.

Your father is standing over your mother not because she is on the ground but because he is so much taller than her. So much taller than you. So much taller than everything and he is like a giant in his Muggle stories that he once upon a time told you when he was employed and you didn't live in with pots catching the rain and the oven door open for warmth because he couldn't abide your mother helping him.

Your father, he grew up in a time when men went to work and made the money and came home to his wife slaving over a hot stove to pull out a freshly cooked dinner and a bottle of beer and you didn't have any respect if that wasn't your life and then he married a woman he thought would put hot food on his table but she was a witch and she would flick a comical looking piece of wood and _she_ went to work and _she_ made the money and the factory shut down and your father just sat, drinking, and wondering where his life went wrong and then he would yell yell yell yell.

The first time you break he is standing over your mother because she is short and you haven't met her yet. He is yelling (yell yell yell yelling) words like accident and mistake and bastard and she doesn't know what some of the terms he uses mean because she is a witch and that just makes him madder and he hits the wall next to her head and you cry out and you run at him and you put your shoulder in to his leg and it pops out of socket and your eyes well up and you won't won't won't _won't_ cry.

His face is big and leering and it smells bad as he leans down to look at you and he sneers something you don't understand because blood is pounding through your ears because your shoulder is separated and all you can hear is the dull sound of the pain.

At least with the Dark Lord the pain was always sharp. At least you always knew why it was being inflicted. You always knew _why_.

With his father, with James Potter, you never knew why. It was always for _something_. You insulted his father, or you jinxed Black in the hallways, but the Dark Lord told you in no uncertain terms why you were being hurt and James Potter just hurt you and while each blow he inflicted on you, you returned in kind he would just smirk as if the gash running down his face was no bother at all and you would be the one humiliated as he turned you upside-down when he could just stand there, broken and battered and not seem the least bit affected and maybe you hate him because you can never seem the least bit affected.

The first time you break you run into his leg and separate your shoulder and he leers down at you and before you can think you ask your mother if she can fix it and he explodes. He yells words like doctors and hospital and emergency room and your mother says they can't afford it and your father says well it's his own damn fault and your mother flicks her wand (it was an Ollivander, nine inches, yew and dragon heartstring but your father never asked about that but you did because you couldn't wait to get your own) and he is furious again and he slams his hand so hard next to her head again that his hand goes through the wall.

He screams again, something about how they hell are they supposed to fix that and she gives him a withering look as she moves her wand arm again but he grabs her wrist and takes her wand and throws it away, yell yell yelling about a man's job and food on the table and provider and a woman's place but you just stop and stare at the casually tossed wand. It has become such a reverent thing for you, an object worthy of its own adulation and he tosses it aside so carelessly as if it is merely another branch found outside amongst the fall leaves and in only three years you'll be leaving for Hogwart's and you will never never never come back, except maybe you amend later when you meet her for summer holidays because it will be nice to have no one around to call you Snivellus when you talk to her and you will have your own wand but that one is important that one is special and you do _not_ just toss it aside like a toy.

You run at him again, using your other shoulder but this time you don't hit bone and you surprise him and you knock him over and you're screaming incomprehensibly about the wand and about Hogwart's and about pain and the blood rushes to your ears but it is adrenaline and _you_ hit _him_ maybe because you wish he would stop dancing around the subject of wanting to hit you and your mother and just hit you and maybe now he will and you will be able to run run run away though when you meet her your'e glad that he never hit you and you can stay though maybe staying with her wouldn't have been so bad her eyes are so _green_ (like Slytherin you think but latter when she's a Gryffindor and James Potter is so enthralled with her red hair if it wasn't that trait that defined her more even if it wasn't the one that drew you in).

Your tiny fists don't do anything except stun him and your mother pulls you off of him and you are crying because it is hard to throw punches with a separated shoulder but it wouldn't be the first time you did something while injured but you wouldn't cry again when doing it you promised yourself that and maybe that's why you called her mudblood just so you wouldn't cry but all the crying in the world couldn't take it back.

The entire ordeal lasts no more than five minutes but those five minutes feel like they define your entire life because when you look back just before the Dark Lord kills you, when you look back with one final glance at green green green eyes you see in those five minutes James Potter leering over you and you punching him like you always wanted to but never could you see Lily standing next to you to pull you off of him into her loving embrace you see the Dark Lord there too and somehow he and Lily are the same, calmly rescuing you from your own emotions and the weaker aspects of your character even though he killed her they are the same they are the same they are the same they save you.

The last time you break is in that moment, the moment when you know you are going to die and you realize you are no better than the silver-handed rat who blubbered and stuttered and gave away her location just so he could live. You want to live you want her eyes you want him gone because he killed her he saved you she saved you he killed her and you are only barely and subconsciously keeping up your Occlumency because it can't come apart now at the end because he deserves to die because he killed her and her eyes only are living because you allowed them to and they are more important than the yelling and if you had her eyes then maybe you wouldn't have broke in the first place.

The last time you break you even manage to hold it together even though you are on your knees pleading, begging, groveling with him with her with him. His murder of you is almost lazy and you even respect that because he did not lean down and leer at you and he did not pull you up by your ankle. He has no need for humiliation and even though he has caused you so much more pain than your father or James Potter you respect the pain he has inflicted on you because he told you why and she never would have accepted that reasoning you know but you can't help it he didn't humiliate you and for awhile that was enough until he killed her even though he was her she saved you he saved you they saved you.

When he saw you break when she saw you break you were begging, pleading, groveling please please please and they both eyed you with such lazy disdain that you loved them for it because the indifference was better than the arrogant leer and the power and the remarks about your hair and your nose and your clothes and they left you behind and they broke your heart and you loved them. You loved her and her eyes were green and your life is bookended by the times that you broke and neither time you had her and maybe if you did you could have survived, maybe if you did you wouldn't have had to break, maybe maybe maybe and her eyes were green.

Of the six of you who have had your lives so inexplicably and inextricably entangled you break last because you outlived them all.

You also break first.

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**A/N: New chapter of A Reason is coming shortly after Thanksgiving weekend, but I've had the idea for this series of six one-shots for awhile now. The concept of a person completely breaking down and the manner in which it happened for the Marauders, Snape and Lily was intriguing to me and I originally planned for the "Scribbles" chapter to be James' breakdown. That changed, but this idea stayed with me. I'll be adding the other breakdowns for the other five characters on a much less consistent basis than I will be updating A Reason but, for now, check this out. It really took on a complete life of its own, getting very **_**very**_** stream of consciousness when I did not intend for it to be, but there you have it. Enjoy!**


	2. Lupin 1971

You break second.

Of the six of you who have had your lives so inexplicably and inextricably entwined, you break second.

You always thought you broke first. You don't realize it until much later. The year when you're teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts to James' son. He looks so much like James. Merlin, his eyes are just Lily's. Especially when he cares about something. But, when he casts a Patronus, well, then it's all James. His eyes even seem to go brown the very first moment you see him gently coax that telling silver mist from his wand.

You realize the very first time Snape makes you the Wolfsbane Potion. You didn't notice it when you were young. You did your best to ignore how James and Sirius teased him. You tried to play both sides of the fence, in a way. Not that it mattered. To Snape, everyone is guilty by association. Regardless, you realize the first time he walks into the Defense Against the Dark Arts office, hands you the potion and his eyes dart around in the quietest way, that everything about him is the mark of a man who broke very early and vowed never to break again.

The first time you break, you are eleven years old.

It is, surprisingly, not the time when you are bitten. There was something, of course, soul-crushing about that day. Everything about your entire life changed in a moment. In your youth you reflected about how little the circumstances of that moment had anything to do with you. You were only chosen because you were your father's son. Some would be bitter about that, but you aren't. Your father was a great man.

It is hard to make you angry. Snape's stubborn, violent curiosity about your condition that almost led to his death did not make you angry. Fenrir Greyback's bite itself did not make you angry. James and Sirius almost forcing you to spill your secret did not make you angry (In point of fact it made you relieved). It takes a lot to make you angry because it is your way of measuring some control over the beast inside you.

The first time you break is the first time you transform at Hogwart's.

You try to compartmentalize your emotions. You put them in small, manageable places. In a way the Marauder's Map was more a map of yourself than it was a map of Hogwart's. Each feeling had its own little place. You could bury your rage in the dungeons or the Slytherin Common Room, explore your joy in the Astronomy Tower as young couples snogged. You could sweep aside your pain into an empty classroom or burrow your lust in a secret passageway. There were the parts you could use and, of course, the parts you couldn't avoid. That passage from Hogwart's, under the Whomping Willow, and into the Shrieking Shack always stuck out awkwardly. An ugly, twisting, disconnected path that wound off the page. You wished you could erase it, but you never would. It was as much a part of Hogwart's (A part of you) as anything else.

The first time you break you are eleven years old and you are transforming for the first time at Hogwart's.

You're alone. You're cold. And, somehow, the pain is always the most surprising thing about the entire ordeal. You wish you could prepare yourself. You wish you could steel your nerves, but the pain comes out of nowhere and hits you so violently that you have no choice but to scream. Your muscles expand and contract, stretch and pull. Your bones rearrange. You see body parts you should never see of yourself jut off in odd directions and you would cry if werewolves had tear ducts, so all you can do is howl and, yes, shriek.

And then, all you have is your base instincts.

You're alone. You're cold. You're _hungry_. Hungry hungry hungry cold alone hungry alone alone alone alone cold cold cold _hungry_. Smell. Sniff. Blood is in the air. Someone is bleeding. Bloodlust. Bloodthirsty. Hungry hungry _hungry_. Door in the way. Door why is the door in the way blood alone cold hungry cold. Sickening cracks as you slam into the door the walls out out _out hungry out cold_ _blood blood blood blood_ and your ears are perked and you can hear them out hungry alone out cold out blood blood out out your nostrils are big they can smell a little girl's perfume you salivate you drool hungry hungry alone and someone is bleeding because you can smell the blood but no one is bleeding because its the beast and _crack crack crack_ against the why is there a blood alone cold hungry door?

The very first time you ever transformed, you were shackled and chained in your own basement. But it was okay. You knew you were protected. No. You knew _they_ were protected. You knew everyone was safe. There was a part of you, so infinitesimal and small, that felt how much they loved you. They still loved you. They wanted to see you (them) safe. Just that small amount of love saved you. Kept you from breaking completely. Maybe you cried that first time (You did). But it wasn't because you were broken. It was because you were so infinitely happy that you didn't break. You were proud of yourself. You were a little kid.

The first time you break you are eleven years old and now the beast is awake and your nostrils and ears are blood blood hungry bigger and you are alone blood cold alone and no one loves you and you cold hungry blood didn't want friends and there are these two kids hungry hungry hungry who are trying to be your cold friends alone blood and you mumbled your mom was sick blood alone cold _crack _and neither of them blood neither of them alone neither of them cold _crack crack_ cold blood believed you.

_Out out out out blood blood hungry_ cold alone blood and they don't care they won't blood care and alone they'd leave cold you cold out blood if they knew _crack crack crack_.

Years later, they are in the shack with you. They don't cringe when you shriek. Well, Wormtail does. They don't run when you transform. Occasionally when you got too blood hungry hungry close to Hogsmeade saliva lips blood blood and your nostrils would catch a little kid's blood perfume (why was it hungry hungry always blood hungry blood little kids?) but then you'd be _crack crack_ sent flying by a pair of antlers. The hunger would still be there. But it would be manageable. Some nights manageable was all you could ask for.

But the first time you blood blood break you are out cold eleven and you are alone alone alone alone alone alone alone.

You are so blood cold hungry that everything hurts and if you out out _crack_ had tear ducts you'd blood hungry blood blood cry your body is _crack_ mangled out out blood and your strong alone alone cold paws can't even stand out out _crack_ anymore and blood every blood hungry bone in your cold limbs is alone broken and instead of crying you whine and whimper like a blood hungry alone cold dog and you can see the blood moon out out outside the window hungry cold.

Everything is in that out moon _crack_ and it breaks out out _crack crack_ your heart and you are alone blood blood alone blood blood alone blood blood alone and the pains in your hungry blood stomach are the worst pain worse than _crack crack_ the bones adjusting and worse than the out cold out cold cold muscles ripping into blood _crack_ new positions and you gnaw on the wood hungry cold and you blood gnaw out _crack_ on the curtains but it doesn't hungry hungry do out cold anything.

As you were walking down the steps of Hogwart's with Madam Pomfrey, she took your hand. She took the hand of her patients often, but this was different. You knew it even though you couldn't really know it. It was maternal. She looked at you with such pained eyes. Pity. Pity to hide a broom closet on the Marauder's Map. You could sense her reluctance to guide you through to the Whomping Willow's roots. You could sense her deeper reluctance _not_ to guide you there.

It's that look, more than anything, more than the occasional close calls near blood hungry _crack_ Hogmeade, that makes you reconsider every time you leave the Shack with cold your friends. She knew it would hurt. She knew it would keep you safe. She knew it would hurt everyone else to _not_ keep you safe. You remember that look or reluctance and you're just glad you didn't get a smell of her because, if you recognized it when you were out with Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs you knew you wouldn't have been able to hide the guilt. Even with the blood _crack blood hungry out_ beast.

The first time you out out out out out _crack crack crack_ break you are blood hungry out cold nine alone alone alone years hungry blood old and you are cold cold hungry alone lying in broken _crack _heap on the floor of the out out out Shrieking out out out Shack _crack_ and you are so hungry so hungry so hungry and everything you can blood blood smell blood you smell everything smell blood blood hungry smell everything and there is so much pain pain pain pain pain pain pain and the wood of the out out out Shack is not blood enough and you begin to hungry hungry pain eat yourself.

You begin yes yes blood yes blood hungry to gnaw on your saliva pain pain own yes yes yes no no no _no no_ leg and with each bit of hungry _crack crack_ flesh you blood blood strip from your out out out _crack_ bones eat eat yes _no_ yes the beast quiets yes no yes no yes no _no no no_ and you want to _crack out_ stop but you no yes no no yes _yes yes_ can't because you can still smell the blood blood blood but you aren't so hungry blood hungry and it doesn't pain no no yes _yes_ hurt as much even though it hurts it hurts it hurts because somewhere inside _you're still human_ _and you're eating yourself_.

Your blood (blood.... blood.... the hungry all-encompassing desire is fading) is spread across the (out...? you can't even move much less escape) floor like the robe of Dementor. You're not (no no no no no no that thought is still there no no no no) sure if you could fight off its Kiss even if you wanted to (yes no yes no yes no yes no). The sky glows with (yes yes yes yes) pre-dawn light and it's only a few (out out out) hours left before you will change back (_crack crack pain crack out_) into a boy and when you were a werewolf spy for Dumbledore years years later you would find out that when a werewolf was the size you were, at the age you were, they would call it a cub and you couldn't think of a less appropriate term.

Your mind is beginning to become your own again when you see the sun first blissfully peak out from above the horizon. As soon as the light hits you your body slams with pain as your bones begin to retract and your muscles and tendons snap and crack as they readjust into an eleven-year old's body and you feel your _entire bloody face_ suck in from a snout into a nose and later it would be funny when James and Sirius heard that slurping noise but right now laughter is the last thing you can think if.

The first time you break you are eleven years old and have just finished your first transformation at Hogwart's. Alone (Loneliness you would sweep haphazardly beneath the rugs in the Kitchens on the Marauder's Map). And you are staring at your right arm, your dominant arm, which is missing whole chunks of flesh and muscle and some parts are scraped straight to the bone and you are so _full_ and you realize you've eaten almost your entire arm and you vomit and cry and scream all at the same time and you realize it's true.

You are a monster.

* * * * * * * *

**A/N: Woah. That's all I got. Still stranded back home away from my latest chapter of A Reason, and I got hit with a surge of inspiration for this short story. I originally thought that I was going to do this in the same style as Snape's, but I realized that would be wholly inappropriate given the differences between all the characters to give them the same styles. So, for this one, I tried contrasting Remus' attempts to keep his human life under control with the overwhelming instincts of the beast as opposed to Snape, where I tried to tap into the maelstrom of thoughts swirling just below his surface that only barely showed themselves in those moments of his pleading in front of Lily and Voldemort. Hope you enjoyed it!**


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